Friday, April 26, 2013

Unemployment Crosses 6-million Mark In Spain

MADRID, April 25 (Bernama) -- The number of unemployed people in Spain has agone past the 6 million mark with over 27 percent of the population without a job in the first three months of 2013, the Spanish National Institute of Statistics said Thursday.

According to a survey, some 27.16 percent of the Spanish population are jobless and leaving almost 2 million households without a single family member holding a job, Xinhua news agency reported.

Figures would have been higher if many immigrants had not returned to their country of origin and young Spaniards had not emigrated to other countries.

Although the number of unemployed has risen by 237,400 in the first quarter of the year, the size of Spain's workforce had shrunk by 322,300.

Unemployment rose in nearly all of the regions in Spain with the largest increases witnessed in Andalusia, the Valencia Autonomous Community and Balearic Islands.

The first quarter of the year is traditionally a bad period for jobs in Spain in general and in those regions in particular, when it falls during off-peak tourist season and when the agricultural sector remains most quiet.

Tourist season in the second quarter of the year should bring some relief to those regions that are at the heart of the Spanish tourist industry.

Without positive signs of economic growth, improvement would be a short-term phenomenon and unemployment would continue to rise in the crisis-hit country.

-- BERNAMA

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